“At the home gallery run by Joey Veltkamp and Ben Gannon, lemafa's show considers "pan-indigenousness, the frictions as well as the unions involved in relation, from one 'indigenous' person to another." It touches on various forms of communication and connection—from a painted internet router to a series of baskets that are a result of a weaving talk-story sesh—parsing out what it means to recognize, care, and call on other people.”

A domestic partnership steeped in art / Nancy Guppyproduced by David Albright for ArtZone, March 22, 2019

The Seattle Times / How artists drew up a perfect Northwest cookbookby Betheny Jean Clement, December 12, 2018

The community represented here is a loose-knit one of artists, gallerists, curators, food-industry types, friends. Ito put “Cook” together as a show at the Bremerton gallery known as cogean? (their question mark), located inside the little house depicted on the cover, owned by artists Ben Gannon and Joey Veltkamp. The cookbook “Cook” is making its way into the contributors’ and other hands by way of both events at the gallery and the cogean? website.​Gannon and Veltkamp say that some curious visitors have shown up at “Cook” potlucks at the gallery and been mystified: Where is the art? The walls are blank; holiday lights twinkle on a tree in the customary, cozy way. At the events, Gannon points out with a smile like a devilish elf, “You are the art” — along with dishes from the book, maybe live music and hot buttered rum, and conversations about art or politics or how deep a bathtub should optimally be. And “Cook,” the book, is the art, too, meant to live on, continuing to feed people.

The Stranger / The Best Art Shows in Seattle: Winter 2018/2019​by Katie Kurtz, December 5th, 2018

The experimental project and home gallery space of artists Joey Veltkamp and Ben Gannon, cogean? features exhibitions that highlight domestic arts and crafts. Launched in March, their fifth show at the 100-year-old house they share on Cogean Avenue—which is within easy walking distance of the Bremerton ferry terminal—is from Ellen Ito, and it is centered on sharing food as community building. Ito also organized a publication in conjunction with the show; it features illustrations and recipes by more than 40 artists, including Matthew Offenbacher, Nicholas Nyland, and Lulu Yee. Proceeds from recipe-book sales benefit local organizations, and attendees are encouraged to bring donations for a food drive to stock a local food bank.

Joey Veltkamp and Ben Gannon see it from the front rooms of the house a stone's throw from downtown they recently acquired to serve as both home and gallery.

"There's a sense of possibility here that we found really compelling," said Gannon, who relocated from Seattle with his partner, Veltkamp, to open cogean? Gallery at the edge of the downtown area.

"We just felt like Bremerton is doing its own thing," said Veltkamp. "Bremerton's always been known as a place that embraced the arts. Ben and I are both from smaller towns — he's from Snohomish, I'm from Spokane — and we like that smaller-town quality.

"Seattle was just too big," Veltkamp shrugged.

City Arts / An Art Scene is Burgeoning in Bremertonby Margo Vansynghel, March 27, 2018

“I’ve seen orcas. Twice!” Joey Veltkamp enthuses about the ferry ride between Bremerton and Seattle. As he talks, his arm nearly brushes a large pink quilt that reads “WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE”—the centerpiece of his solo show, Blue Skies Forever, opening tonight here in Seattle at Greg Kucera Gallery. After the evening’s lively opening reception, Veltkamp and his husband, artist Ben Gannon, will take the ferry back to Bremerton, where they moved last August.

A growing group of Seattle artists is moving across the Sound to the blue-collar navy town of a little over 40,000 people, lured by lower home prices, ample studio space and idyllic ferry rides. A fast ferry has accelerated both the trend and the trip from Seattle.​Things are changing in Bremerton. Olympic College opened a new, state-of-the-art gallery in late January. Last month, the 77-year-old Roxy movie theater reopened after being mostly closed for 30 years, and Veltkamp and Gannon inaugurated their contemporary art gallery, called cogean?.

Infinite Blossom / City Arts MagazineCity Arts Staff, March 27, 2018

Erin Frost’s recent multimedia works comprise a volume of autobiographical imagery. A series of Rorschach-inspired prints were made by drawing trails of deep fuchsia paint along the heart line of Frost’s palm—a process filmed for the centerpiece video in her exhibit traces / you know the way.

“The piece is responding to relationships,” Frost says. “It’s about the imprints we leave behind, as well as how we’re imprinted upon and expand.

The video carries this theme of mirroring, reflecting back to ourselves the way, perhaps, a lover would. It’s about learning to conjure and fill that intimate space. I’m thinking about the body as a map of the past and future, and ultimately as a love story.”​traces / you know the way is on view at cogean? in Bremerton on Saturdays through April 13, with a finissage punch party on closing night.

Other tactics include increasingly merging life and art, engaging with Bremerton as a creative endeavor, and transforming their Bremerton house into their own home gallery [cogean?] and artist refuge (plans are still in flux but include showing work by Seattle and Bremerton makers and an opt-in residency for those who need it). All of it fuses into festiveness, togetherness, community-building and beauty particular to Veltkamp and Gannon’s holistic aesthetic—a true Gesamtkunstwerk.​“We want to live a beautiful life, aesthetically and ethically,” says Gannon. “We’ll incorporate another practice so that ideally, every detail, from rising to sleep, engages in deliberate acts of beauty. That’s a good enough goal for life, we think.”